Techmeme
February 16, 2024, 2:00 PM

Top News

Parmy Olson / Bloomberg:
OpenAI's Sora announcement sparks awe and horror, as the startup continues to be frustratingly secretive about the data used to train the text-to-video model  —  Sam Altman is being secretive in all the wrong places as he barrels toward superintelligent AI.  —  Every new OpenAI announcement sparks some measure of awe and terror.
Steven Levy / Wired:
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Ryan Browne / CNBC:
PitchBook: VC investment in crypto rose 2.5% QoQ in Q4 2023 to $1.9B, the first rise since Q1 2022; Q4 2023 saw 12 crypto exits, the lowest number since Q4 2020  —  - PitchBook said in a fourth-quarter update that the level of investment for crypto-related companies in the fourth quarter totaled $1.9 billion …
Davey Winder / Forbes:
Google announces the AI Cyber Defense Initiative, which includes launching new AI security training and open sourcing Magika, a tool used to protect Gmail users  —  Google has confirmed a new security scheme which, it says, will help “secure, empower and advance our collective digital future” using AI.
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google Search Labs is testing a “Talk to a Live Representative” feature, which calls a business on the user's behalf and holds until a human becomes available  —  Google Search Labs is testing a “Talk to a Live Representative” feature where it will “help you place the call …
William Gallagher / AppleInsider:
Epic says it “will start developing the Epic Games Store on iOS soon thanks to the new Digital Markets Act”, after Apple approved its developer account  —  Three years after Apple kicked Epic Games off the App Store for breaking terms of business, it has allowed the firm to return …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Q&A with Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer on bringing Xbox-exclusive games to PS5 and Switch, Xbox's future, “unique” next-gen hardware, regulation, and more  —  Microsoft has been gradually moving Xbox away from the idea of a single piece of hardware in recent years …
Jamie Tarabay / Bloomberg:
The US and its allies disrupt access by Russia-backed hacking group APT28, or Fancy Bear, to 1,000+ home and small business routers used for criminal purposes  —  The US and its allies have disrupted access by a Russian-state sponsored hacking organization to “well over a thousand home …
Associated Press:
OpenAI, Google, Meta, TikTok, X, and others sign a voluntary accord at the Munich Security Conference to fight AI-generated deepfakes designed to mislead voters  —  Major technology companies signed a pact Friday to voluntarily adopt “reasonable precautions” to prevent artificial intelligence tools …
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Clubhouse adds texting to group voice chats, letting users train a custom voice and send asynchronous texts that the app will read out in the sender's voice  —  Clubhouse, the once-popular live audio app, announced today that users can now text their friends and they'll hear those texts in the sender's custom voice.
AJ Vicens / CyberScoop:
Ukrainian Vyacheslav Penchukov pleads guilty in the US for his role in the Zeus and IcedID malware groups, which stole millions from victims for over a decade  —  Vyacheslav Igorevich Penchukov pleaded guilty to two counts, each of which carries a possible 20-year prison term.
Rachel Metz / Bloomberg:
The FTC proposes new rules that would make companies liable if they “know or have reason to know” their AI tech is being used to harmfully impersonate consumers  —  The US Federal Trade Commission moved to put new rules into place around impersonation, citing the rising threat …
Mark Sullivan / Fast Company:
Meta releases V-JEPA, an AI model that learns by predicting missing or masked parts of unlabeled video to develop a conceptual understanding of the world  —  Meta's AI researchers have released a new model that's trained in a similar way as today's large language models, but instead of learning from words …

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More News

Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai / TechCrunch:

Earlier Picks

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
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Emma Roth / The Verge:
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